August 20, 2018

Jack Phillips Back in Court

The left is concerned that a ruling in Jack Phillips’s favor would open the floodgates to all kinds of discrimination.

The right supports Phillips, arguing that he is being targeted for his sincerely held religious beliefs.

“It would be a different story if Sardina had also requested that Jack Phillips write ‘Happy Gender Transition Day!’ because the government can’t compel a business owner to engage in speech he finds objectionable. But the simple act of creating a blue-pink cake doesn’t send any message at all... If a business owner can refuse to serve one customer the exact same product that he’d willingly sell another based on an objection to the use to which the product would be put, we might just as well admit that anti-discrimination laws are toothless.”

“The Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group representing Phillips, has waged war in the courts for business owners to deny services that communicate messages in conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs. While their arguments have been anchored around refusing service to LGBT people or denying contraception coverage to women, their broader arguments raise concerns from critics they will rip loopholes into nondiscrimination policies across the board, potentially opening the door to racial discrimination in the name of religion, for example.”

Buzzfeed

“Phillips won his Supreme Court case earlier this year dealing with another instance, from 2012, in which he and Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception. But the [7-2] ruling in that case was narrow; rather than deciding that Phillips’s religious beliefs empowered him to bypass Colorado anti-discrimination law and discriminate against gay people, the ruling focused on how the Colorado government had treated Phillips — unfairly, in the Supreme Court justices’ view.”

Vox

The right supports Phillips, arguing that he is being targeted for his sincerely held religious beliefs.

“The gay rights movement originally was an effort for us to be left alone and to not be punished for who we are. We simply wanted to be able to live our lives without fear of arrest, or our businesses raided or destroyed, because of who we were... Now, it’s Christians being hounded by a liberal elite in power in government and society who are demanding, ironically, that Christians should be harassed, punished, fired or lose their businesses because they’re different and don’t conform.”

“No gay couple seeking a wedding cake is going to have to travel three states away to find one if Phillips declines their custom. No transgender person celebrating a coming out is going to want for baked goods if Phillips refuses service... The point is not to see to it that gay and transgender people can live their lives as they wish to — the point is to coerce Jack Phillips into conformity.”